The embodiments herein relate generally to systems that simultaneously obtain video footage in different directions.
Prior to embodiments of the disclosed invention, in movies and television, many scenes where characters are driving in a car are done with actors on a stage in the car with a green screen behind them. The background driving footage is added in later at a post house. In the past, shooting the background footage has been cumbersome and difficult as a single camera mounted to a vehicle would have to make multiple passes on a street at different angles to get the footage needed. The prior art includes: U.S. Patent Application Publication 2009/0201361 published by Lyon; U.S. Pat. No. 6,950,120 issued to Endo; and U.S. Patent Application Publication 2010/0220173 issued to Anguelov.
Lyon utilizes cameras arranged in a “rosette formation” instead of a “nodal formation” and attempts to reduce errors by staggering the timing of cameras to reduce parallax rather than obtaining images at substantially overlapping angles. Endo teaches cameras arranged in a traditional two image overlap formation rather than a nodal formation. Like Lyon, Endo is interested primarily in a timing algorithm. Anguelov is directed toward a stitching algorithm and is uninterested with the orientation of cameras.